What I Let Die Podcast
In What I Let Die (WILD Podcast), Grief & Loss Educator Akilah S. Richards invites us to stop running from grief and start tending to it. This podcast is about grief literacy—learning how to name, witness, and work with endings, especially the ones that don’t come with funerals.
info_outline
Ep 12: How to Start a Grief Circle (Even If You’ve Never Done This Before)
06/01/2025
Ep 12: How to Start a Grief Circle (Even If You’ve Never Done This Before)
You don’t need credentials to hold space for grief.
You just need care. A space. And the courage to stay. In this final episode of Season One, we walk through the how-to of starting your own grief circle—from the kitchen table to the community center to a Zoom call. Whether you’ve never hosted a space like this before, or you’re ready to return to one with more intention, this episode offers a warm, practical guide to making room for what hurts and what still matters. We explore the rituals that help us listen to grief—like composting, funerals, eulogies, and emotional autopsies—and we reflect on how our inherited beliefs about death shape what we’re willing to name. In this episode, we explore: * How to host a grief circle, step-by-step * What to say when you’re not an expert * 4 grief rituals you can try inside your circle * Why silence, honesty, and curiosity are enough * How to confront your personal grief mythology Visit to join our grief + joy work with Thea Monyeé. And join the ILID course . Thanks for walking through this first season with me.
May your grief gatherings be messy, honest, and enough.
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/36604950
info_outline
Ep 11: Daily Grieftending: Small Rituals That Change Everything
05/18/2025
Ep 11: Daily Grieftending: Small Rituals That Change Everything
This grieftending episode is full of rituals that meet you where you actually are. In it, I offer you small grief practices for real life. Not just retreats. Not just deep dives, but daily, doable rituals. We named grief myths and we honored non-body deaths (Kananápo). We asked: What do you want to stop carrying, and start composting? We explore: Micro-Funerals (for endings and expired expectations) The Audio Mirror (unfiltered voice journaling) Composting Grief (turning loss into future nourishment) Episode 12 will close the season. It’s a how-to for grief circles. A soft, useful structure for collective tending. Tune in for it.
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/36604940
info_outline
EP 10. Parenting While Grieving, Grieving While Parenting
05/18/2025
EP 10. Parenting While Grieving, Grieving While Parenting
Final episode in the Grief in Community arc of What I Let Die What happens when you’re grieving and trying to show up for your kids at the same time? What happens when you’re the one responsible for someone else’s emotional safety, while still unraveling inside your own pain? This episode is about that. It’s about the parents, caregivers, aunties, mentors, and chosen family members trying to hold it down for the young ones—while carrying grief that isn’t always named, understood, or supported. In this final episode of our Grief in Community arc, I’m speaking directly to the tension of grieving while parenting, and parenting while grieving. I talk about what happens when we try to hide our pain. What happens when we overexpose our kids to it. And what can shift when we just start being more real, more resourced, and more reflective about it all. I also share a piece of my own parenting-while-grieving story and offer some questions and frames to help you explore what grief is teaching—through you, and through the children watching you. 🔎 In this episode: Talking to kids about grief without shutting them down The “absent-but-sorta-present” parent How untended grief impacts your caregiving What our caregivers’ grief taught us (and didn’t) What grieving out loud can make possible ✨ Core Questions to Sit With: How did your parents or caregivers grieve around you? What are the children in your life learning from how you grieve? What kind of grief conversation would you have, if shame wasn’t in the room? Let’s continue this conversation inside the .
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/36518805
info_outline
Ep. 9: How Body Death Teaches Us To Hold Kananápo
05/11/2025
Ep. 9: How Body Death Teaches Us To Hold Kananápo
In this episode, Akilah S. Richards reflects on the journey so far inside What I Let Die, pausing to honor how physical death has shaped her relationship with non-physical losses. She weaves in the concept of Kananápo—the grief that comes from endings that don’t involve a body—and explores how tending to body death can grow our capacity to hold what we can’t see but deeply feel. Grief and joy show up together here, as they often do. With metaphors rooted in permaculture and practices from the ILID course, Akilah reminds us that our grief-tending skills are also joy-growing skills. This one is an offering of tenderness, clarity, and invitation. In this episode: A reflection on body death and its teachings The grief-joy connection, grounded in everyday language An invitation to keep practicing with what grief leaves behind Tap in further at , and join the ILID waitlist to continue the work of honoring and releasing.
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/36518790
info_outline
Ep. 8: Grieving Together: Why Our Communities Need More Grief Literacy
05/04/2025
Ep. 8: Grieving Together: Why Our Communities Need More Grief Literacy
Episode 8: Grieving Together: Why Our Communities Need More Grief Literacy What does it take to hold space for someone else's grief without making it about us? And what if we stopped waiting for the "right" words and just started witnessing each other better? In this episode, I’m reflecting on what I’ve learned about grieving in community—from grief at work to grief in friendships to the subtle, daily losses we rarely name out loud. I’m also sharing a personal story that changed the way I show up when people around me are hurting. “When we are allowed to grieve out loud, without being asked to shrink or perform, we begin to remember each other differently.” This one’s about the skills we all need to practice if we’re serious about showing up for the people we love. Tap in, then come drop your reflections in the .
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/36390505
info_outline
Ep. 7: Friend-ings (When Friendships End)
04/27/2025
Ep. 7: Friend-ings (When Friendships End)
Friendships can be life affirming rescue work, and they can also feel like the death of us. Whether we're talking about longtime friendships new ones that felt so aligned and perfect for a short time, or once formed within our family circle (because a sister or cousin can also be a friend), friendships shape us. Like us, friendships are born they grow the change, the age, and sometimes they die. Let's talk about how loss and change and friendship impacts our choices, our willingness, or lack thereof, and so many other aspects of the human experience. And let's not forget about our non-human can, because friendships with animals, trees, and other forms of nature are valid, alive, and can also die. Let's feel into it, slowly and with much care, shall we? Episode 7 of What I Let Die Podcast is all about friend-ings, and for some of us, this episode is right on time!
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/36326275
info_outline
Ep. 6: The Parent You Thought You'd Be
04/20/2025
Ep. 6: The Parent You Thought You'd Be
In Episode 6, we cracked open the quiet griefs of parenting. The grief of aging and shifting roles. The grief of children growing into their own sovereignty. The grief of estrangement—sometimes chosen, sometimes forced. The grief of letting go of the version of yourself that thought you’d always know how to do this. Akilah covers the topics of: Letting go of old parental ideals and identities Estrangement and emotional distance Grieving loss of control and certainty Joy and terror in witnessing a child’s sovereignty Challenging the dominant narratives of parenting as ownership Learn more about Akilah's approach to grieftending on her .
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/36152390
info_outline
Ep. 5: Working Through Grief, Grieving Through Work
04/15/2025
Ep. 5: Working Through Grief, Grieving Through Work
Grief doesn’t wait for a pink slip. In this episode, we explore the layered grief of working under capitalism—when the job keeps going, but parts of you have already ended. Akilah unpacks the grief of staying employable at the expense of your well-being, the ache of entrepreneurship, and what it means to leave a job you once loved. We ask: What did I lose just to keep getting paid? What version of me is still performing out of fear? What would I need to stop pretending this doesn’t hurt? This isn’t just about employment—it’s about worth, identity, and what we’ve had to bury to stay afloat. More at
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/36109665
info_outline
Ep. 4: Seeing Yourself and Being Seen (Identity Deaths Overview)
04/06/2025
Ep. 4: Seeing Yourself and Being Seen (Identity Deaths Overview)
Episode 4 is an invitation into the layered world of identity death: the parts of us we’ve shed, outgrown, or been forced to release— and the ache that follows, both ours and other people’s. Core Themes: Identity Death: chosen, forced, or slowly revealed The grief of being unseen or held to outdated versions of self What it stirs when others change, or don’t How perimenopause, aging, career shifts, body changes, and belief unravelings reshape us The difference between knowing who you were and being seen as who you are now Core Questions: What parts of yourself have you outgrown, shed, or lost—by choice or by force? Who in your life is grieving the version of you that no longer exists? Are there people whose changes feel like loss to you? What do you wish you could say to them? How do you want to be seen now, as you are? If this one stirred something, I hope you’ll sit with it. Or share your own identity death in the . I’ll meet you there.
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/36019360
info_outline
Ep. 3: Sorting Through Grief, Trauma, and Depression
03/30/2025
Ep. 3: Sorting Through Grief, Trauma, and Depression
In Episode 3, we feel into the reality that grief can show up in ways we don’t always recognize. In this episode, I explore the blurry lines between grief, trauma, and depression — how they overlap, how they differ, and why it matters that we don’t lump them all into the same category. I’m not speaking as a clinician, but as someone who’s lived and studied grief, and who’s made space for others to do the same. Together, we’ll look at what happens when grief goes untended, and how that can impact our mental and emotional wellbeing. This one is about language, discernment, and the many ways grief asks to be witnessed. Read episode postmortems and join our group chat over at .
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/35915120
info_outline
Ep. 1: Grief Basics: What We Were Never Taught
03/23/2025
Ep. 1: Grief Basics: What We Were Never Taught
Let's talk about what we were never taught about grief, because let's be real, most of us grew up with this b.s. idea about what grief is, how it works, and who deserves to feel it, and when we deserve to feel it. So let's unlearn some of that together. Some things need to die. Period. Not to complete a cycle, not to fit into our tidy narratives—just because they are done, and dragging them forward only feeds the rot, the stench, the futile energy. That’s What I Let Die—a podcast series from Raising Free People Network about endings, grief, and what we make possible when we stop trying to tuck our losses away and start holding loss with skill and care. Join me, Akilah S. Richards, Grief and Loss Educator and longtime podcaster, to feel through grief and relief for the many deaths within our lives. Episodes publish every Sunday, starting March 23rd. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere pods are casted.
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/35665145
info_outline
Ep. 2: Naming the Deaths We Don’t See (Kananápo)
03/23/2025
Ep. 2: Naming the Deaths We Don’t See (Kananápo)
In this second episode of the grief foundations section, I’m sharing some of the language, context, and real-life patterns that shape how I live with loss—and how I support others in doing the same. In this one, I’m leaning into non-body deaths—the grief that doesn’t come with obituaries or casseroles. I talk about a Jamaican Patois term gifted it to my vocabulary by my mother's mother, my beloved grandmother, that captures the sudden absence of something you didn’t realize mattered until it was gone. A version of you, a relationship, a possibility, a belief. That’s kananápo. And when we name it, we make space to actually feel it—without rushing to fix or explain it. I bring in words from Alua Arthur’s book, Briefly Perfectly Human, which beautifully echoes the truth that we don’t have to wait for someone to die to experience real, shape-shifting grief. Identity shifts, dreams deferred, relationships we thought would always be there... these are losses, too. This episode is about becoming more fluent in the language of your own loss—especially the parts you were never taught to name as grief. I also talk about: * The ways anticipatory grief shows up * How language (like kananàpo) helps us archive our personal histories * Why being with, not solving for, is the practice We’re building a grief vocabulary here—not for the sake of becoming experts, but to feel less alone when the ground shifts. This one is especially for you if you’ve been feeling something unnamed tugging at your sense of self, and you’re ready to slow down long enough to ask, “What have I lost that I never gave myself permission to grieve?” Come sit with it. Next episode, we’ll get into the distinctions between grief, trauma, and depression—because those waters get murky, and language can help us move more gently through them. As always, the links and resources live at , and the chat space is open for reflections, side stories, and soft landings. See you there.
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/35665380
info_outline
Introducing: What I Let Die aka WILD Podcast
02/27/2025
Introducing: What I Let Die aka WILD Podcast
Grief literacy—the ability to name, witness, and tend to endings—is a socially sanctioned ignorance. We are living in a time of collapse, irreparability, and profound shifts. But no one taught us how to hold loss. We were told to move on. To push through. To keep busy. But grief don’t work like that. When untended, it refuses to wait for permission or convenient timing. And grief? It ain’t just about death. It’s about everything that’s been left behind. Relationships that no longer fit. Roles we’ve outgrown. Identities and dreams that had to die so we could keep living. My community calls these non-body deaths, Kananapo. And here’s the thing—grief doesn’t disappear just because we ignore it. It settles in our bodies. It shapes our choices, our relationships, the way we move through a world that won’t stop shifting under our feet. So, what happens when we stop running from grief? When we name it, witness it, and tend to it? We move from avoidance to presence. From grief-struck to grieftending. Some things need to die. Period. Not to complete a cycle, not to fit into our tidy narratives—just because they are done, and dragging them forward only feeds the rot, the stench, the futile energy. That’s What I Let Die—a 4-part podcast from Raising Free People Network about endings, grief, and what we make possible when we stop trying to tuck our losses away and start holding loss with skill and care. Join me, Akilah S. Richards, Grief and Loss Educator and longtime podcaster, to feel through grief and relief for the many deaths within our lives. Episodes publish every Sunday, starting March 23rd. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or anywhere pods are casted.
/episode/index/show/2e15fa67-e0c7-4f95-b2d8-8ef92adacee5/id/35473345